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Even Snow Birds Dig Social Media

Jean Dorrell believes social media is truly for everyone, even her 68-year-old clients clamoring to get on Facebook. And so the president of Senior Financial Security in Summerfield, Fl. launched her clients on the cyberspace path, holding a seminar on online security and apps — and then watched her own reach to new clients bloom as well.

“My clients love Facebook, but they are very afraid of it. They don’t understand it. They have heard of people getting spammed or porn coming from Facebook, and have shied away. So I hired a social media expert. I have a Zumba person work with clients, I have a retired police person from the YMCA come in and tell them how to keep their purse safe. I thought, this would be a great class. Because they say, ‘I want to do the Internet,’ but they’re afraid.

We had 60 people, in a two and a half hour class over the summer. All of my clients are snow birds, so I was surprised by the turnout. One client cancelled her cruise to come. By far the most important thing they wanted to learn about was Facebook and privacy settings. The second one was how to use Skype. I also have an IT guy and I had offered to have him come to their house, to clean up their computer, and help them set up accounts. But they mostly wanted him to go shopping with them for an iPad.

This is going to be the norm, because [older clients] are hungry for this information. I now have several clients connecting to me on Facebook. They ‘like’ my page. They make comments on my posts. They watch the videos I put online. I recently held a seminar and had a lady come, about 71-years-old, who is not a client and I noticed she’s now commenting on my posts about the seminars. For me, it’s been a great way to also meet prospects. I’m even thinking of having [the classes] monthly.”